Vote and the Choice is Yours - AV Geeks at Hunt Library

so we're ex extraordinarily excited to keep partnering with skip for that today's theme is vote and the choice is yours and we're so excited that our guest professor professor natalie bullock round was able to make it um we've actually had professor bullock brown with us before to speak about this film and that was six years ago so we're really glad to welcome them back professor bullock brown is an award-winning and emmy-nominated producer and a teaching assistant professor in interdisciplinary studies here at north carolina state university she is director producer of bartman beyonce and me a documentary work in progress that explores the impact of beauty ideals on black women and girls and is a producer on award-winning filmmaker byron hertz upcoming pbs documentary hazing natalie is also story shift strategist for wilmington north carolina based working films where she guides the organization's work in ethical and accountable documentary storytelling she is a regular contributor to back channel a monthly segment on the north carolina public radio program the state of things and for more than a decade natalie was an assistant professor of film and broadcast media in the department of media and communications at st augustine's university in raleigh she also served as co-host of black issues forum a public affairs program on unc-tv north carolina statewide public television network natalie was also an associate producer on documentary filmmakers ken burns 10-part pbs series jazz she has a master of fine arts and film production from howard university and a bachelor of arts in english from northwestern so we're very happy to have professor bullock brown thank you for joining us today thanks for the invitation absolutely thanks for coming back just as a reminder we have over 200 av geeks compilations available for checkout at nc state university libraries um should you not want to visit a library at this moment or should you not have the ability to check out materials from us you can also visit avgeeks.com or search for av geeks in youtube or at archive.org for more stuff like this but now i'd like to hand it over to skip thank you all thank you so much jason i'm just gonna go ahead and apologize for um muting you for my introduction um accidentally uh technology is it's a bear and so thank you for bearing with us um i'm so happy to have uh natalie bullock brown with me uh we did we showed this film many years ago at hunt library in person and um this is a fascinating film because it's north carolina made and it was probably shown on public television um this is part of the north carolina film board um that was created during terry sanford who was governor at the time and he modeled the film board very much after the uh national film board of canada and actually kind of brought in one of the people that used to work with the film border candidate to help kind of create the north carolina film board and i have a several films from that the film board but what was in particularly interesting was the series that they did called minority report where they actually went to historically black colleges in north carolina and had the students there kind of do these these short documentaries about um issues related to race in the mid 60s um it's a phenomenal thing they went to uh fayetteville state which is we're gonna see uh in this film but they also went to i think a t uh and central i believe and then also there was a women's college in greensboro whose name i can't i'm suddenly spacing on um but all these are really yeah bennett exactly been at college um and so it's it's really kind of fascinating to see these films because they're trying to talk about what's happening currently back in the 60s but there's amazing documents of what is going what was going on at that time and we can use hindsight to kind of go back and look and see how these things played out um i was very honored to to go with uh martin johnson who's written about this subject he's a professor at unc uh and we actually showed the film at fayetteville state university last year and we were hoping that people that were in the film would show up and kind of talk about the experiences but what we got we got people that knew people that were in the film and so they were able to talk about the experiences and some people from the neighborhood so this is a really fascinating film it kind of talks about it's part of it's in the studio but also part of it is is kind of man on the street interviews where they go around and ask people if they're going to vote in the upcoming presidential election so let's go ahead and watch it and then natalie i'm sure has lots of things to talk about and that we can talk about together so here's vote and the choice is yours uh do you plan to vote in the coming election i do do you think that your vote is important of course i do why do you think you choose because i'm a taxpayer for one thing do you think that the uh election uh this year will be more or less based on a racial overtone possibly why who knows more cooking well what what's your occupation housewife is your husband registered no suppose i know he is uh does he plan to vote in the coming election he doesn't well do you think that uh why why well that's his business i didn't ask him why if he doesn't want to that's his privilege that has nothing to do with me of course well you are going to vote yes because you believe your vote is important of course but not for goldwater if it makes a difference we shall win our rights we shall win to sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men so spoke abraham lincoln 100 years ago a century later 1964 was the year of the landslide election when men indeed spoke out a memorable year for american negroes too there were street demonstrations a new civil rights act was passed and more negroes registered and voted than ever before in north carolina one hundred fifty thousand negroes went to the polls and cast their ballots in four southern states the negro vote surpassed the democratic plurality in all the south a three-fifths rise in negro registration during two years [Music] before that election students at fayetteville college north carolina set out to analyze the voting habits of negroes in cumberland county many students had campaigned for human rights through carolina streets during the past four years would their elders now climax the struggle with the most eloquent demonstration of all at the voting booth and the ballot box cumberland county of which fayetteville is now the chief commercial city was settled in 1754 by highland scott negros have been living in the county since it was settled far back as a revolutionary wall there were negro men from cumberland county area such as lewis rebels john lomax thomas bell and many others in the army who served faithfully and fought galilee for the cause of american independence during the reconstruction period there were some negroes who participated in the legislature and who were elected to different posts in fact one was secretary of state and one made it and a few i believe two made it to the senate of the united states however for the most part these were rare instances and the negro was not really a power factor in the reconstruction governments today we do have some outstanding negroes in government and we know as a minority negro cannot play a dominant role in government but we are in present in the realm of government today and politics and examining a report listing the number of white and non-white voters for north carolina in 1961 we found that cumberland county showed 25 173 whites registered which represents 40.2 percent of the potential white voting population the number of non-white registers was 5097 representing only 24.3 percent for the non-white the difference in the proportion of white and non-white registers was 15.9 percent now looking at the state as a whole cumberland county represents 1.9 percent of north carolina's total voting population in a simpler perspective only about one of every seven of the county's potential non-white voting population are registered as compared to one of every three for the white an essential part of first-class citizenship is the use of the vote in order to find out more about the negro voting habit in our area students from several departments of federal state teachers college conducted a survey which entails a sampling of 500 negro adults male and female in cameron county through the employment of the interview technique a random sample of 500 persons was interviewed typical of questions asked respondents were have you ever registered which 54 responded yes 46 percent responded no do you plan to vote in the next election was another question asked respondents 72 percent answered yes 28 percent responded no do you think your vote is important was another question asked respondents 85 percent responded yes 15 percent responded no this survey was made on saturday march 21st 1964 the majority of the skilled workers are registered voters and they expressed a variety of opinions concerning the importance of the vote well i think it's important because it's my privilege as an american citizen to vote and uh say vote in the choices yours are out now do you think that your vote is of any particular importance in this election i think so one because i'm going to use it yes sir well have you ever voted before since i've been 21 and eligible i have voted yes my choice of course well i think everyone's vote is very much important and maybe like one vote or having enough to win the election oh i think every vote's important yeah every vote means just that many more i really think everybody should vote one way or another they take the attitude that a voteless people is a hopeless people and that voting isn't an is an insurance against apathy insofar as elected officials are concerned now why do you think your vote is important why do i think it because i believe in my race sir i'll leave my race well have you ever voted before so you've been fighting hard for civil rights and i think this election means a little bit more well do you think that the negro's vote is important yes i think everybody's vote is important why just because it's a freedom of religion speech and your right to vote and you should vote everybody should vote well have you ever voted before uh-huh well i think everybody has what i'm saying i think i don't think we can criticize how the government is run or what's done about unless you do you know vote i can't to say well uh the government isn't doing things like i'd like them to naturally all right it won't ever be but until i do something about it i can't complain again well have you ever voted before oh yes ever since i was 21 i haven't missed an election okay thank you very much [Music] those skilled workers who do not vote listed several reasons for not voting the element of fear was not absent from the skilled laborer category well now would you like to vote no comment are you registered to vote i don't have to say that do you think that your vote is important tell me why you asked me man well you've never registered then before concerning economic reprisals i distinctly remember one instance in which we interviewed an unskilled laborer he refused to answer any of our questions because he feared that if his employer knew that he had voting interests he would be fired also during the course of our survey we found that because they are a minority group the negro feels that they are outside of the realm of politics now for this reason he has not ex-exercised his voting right because he feels that by voting he will not alleviate these injustices which have been done here looking now at the attitudes toward voting among the professional people there were five persons listing occupations which placed them into the professional category all of these respondents are registered voters they feel that as citizens this is a part of their civic responsibility and that their votes may help to decide whether a qualified or unqualified person will serve as their representative these respondents feel that voting is the only way that responsible citizens can voice their opinions in a representative democracy do you think that this election is any more important than any other well uh i would say that uh all the elections are important i was placed as much as importance on disciplines i have in here i believe and you uh do you think that your vote is important certainly why um without the vote you have no choice uh the vote gives you a choice it's up to everyone to vote and make the choice the right choice well you have voted before that certainly all right uh well you might if i ask you what type of work you do i teach school do you think your vote is important sure sure yes sir i think everybody ought to vote why do you think it's important well i think we are the vote we ever expect to have rights to senators from one thing another i think everybody ought to vote well have you ever voted before oh yeah [Music] now sir uh what what what's your occupation passion your pastor that's right the unskilled category was composed of 414 respondents when asked have you ever registered 56 percent of these respondents said yes while 44 said no but no respondents listed the following reasons for not registering and voting first they did not subscribe to the platforms of the various candidates second they have voted in previous elections but the candidates did not put into practice what was stated during the campaign third they were afraid of economic reprisals from employers fourth they did not vote because they were of the opinion that they were not regarded as first-class citizens in north carolina and the united states fifth they were aware of the fact that very few members of their race were appointed by these candidates to positions with recognized social statuses almost invariably each respondent wanted his children to grow up in a well-defined democratic society and exercise the power to vote they further stated that they were desirous of their children becoming first-class citizens and holding public offices some expressed skepticism in the american democratic process a farmer did not know why he did not vote nevertheless he felt that the importance of the vote was a simple matter of arithmetic one plus one plus one and so on equals a large number one housewife remarked she never thought about voting this indicates how apathy in public responsibility can become a habit well now have you ever voted before no i haven't why i just hadn't well have you ever wanted to yes i just said i just didn't take the time to vote i guess [Music] yet these same respondents knew that voting gave the individual to the opportunity to help put the right person in office a laborer admitted that he did not understand registration procedures nevertheless he understood the importance of the vote according to him any vote is important if you know what you're voting for how do you mean well for better during the survey we interviewed quite a few people who thought that the candidates were only trying to get more negro votes by offering and promising the negroes things during their campaign but they also stated that once these candidates were in office these promises seem to be forgotten completely of the person's interview 41 were placed in the semi-skill category 69 percent of this number had registered while 31 percent did not feel the need to register slightly over half of the summer skilled responders gave reasons as to why they did or did not vote those who did not vote implied no interest excuses or even contempt they expressed very opinions concerning the importance of a vote a public worker who did not vote used the excuse that his children occupied most of his time a machine operator who voted believed that his vote was just as important as anyone else's vote one laundry worker responded that she never took time to vote but she also explained that her vote could help elect a candidate into public office two city workers who voted believe that the ballot would help improve the general conditions of the negroes if the right candidates could get elected several summer skilled workers who did not vote still remember an often repeated american idea one vote can make the difference most voters however explain that their votes were important in order to get the things that they need or it helped to get the right people into office making help them get better jobs one thing well i think everybody should have write their rights we need to vote and to know how to vote and for the things that are to make our conditions better at least to get a better education the negro is more qualified now than he were years ago and they are doing much better now each and every day in the educational field the percentage of summer skilled workers who had not registered or voted felt that they would do so if they could be convinced that the candidate was endless and sincere in his campaign for equality in most cases the negro realizes that he does have a civic responsibility in the rich history of cumberland county and the city of fayetteville this responsibility has been met and surpassed by men such as henry evans matthew leary aj chestnut dr e e smith dr jw seabrook and other professional and businessmen of the community a survey of 500 negro adults was taken in cumberland county this survey revealed a sampling of the attitude attitudes of the negro toward voting the majority of the skill and the professional person's interview were registered voters not only did they know the importance of their vote but also they felt their obligation as responsible and interested citizens to exercise their suffrage the sixty-nine percent of the semi-skilled respondents who voted tended to be more interested in the candidates than in the issues the thirty-one percent who did not vote rationalize with ex excuses relative to lack of time lack of interest or lack of confidence in candidates among the interview in the unskilled category the voters were in the minority although all realize the significance of the vote economic reprisals skepticism of candidates and the democratic processes apathy and an induced feeling of second-class citizenship were the reasons given for not voting in this category however they all stayed a sincere hope for first-class citizenship for their prosperity most negroes have become what we call independence also the voting consciousness of the people interviewed rose with the social social economic level which is some indication that the higher the income or educational level the more the individual is inclined to participate in elections well there's quite a few negroes have registered within the last uh say within the last two or three months well i consider all elections important because it's a part of our democratic way of play well why do you think that your vote is important well that would help i feel like it will help if i didn't think it would help i wouldn't want to vote no i want to help president johnson now are the other members of your household registered yes do they plan to vote in the coming election i guess so i know do you know how they feel in so far as the racial right the same as you do yeah i think the election for mr goldwater is fine well we should uh all vote for john i believe that's where i'm at and uh regularly i mean i'm i'm democrat i vote democratic but i think it is well have you ever voted before you haven't why not i haven't had a chance sir i haven't had pivot no i'm not old enough oh you're not no why not don't tend to move sir just don't understand why well if uh everyone took that attitude it would be uh millions of votes not cast i sure love you why because god made me just like he did the white man pardon i think i'm important i have voted regularly since i've become 21. all right thank you and i'll see how many years it's been one attitude emerged strongly from the questionnaires the negro now seeks to win his basic rights by gaining political strength his support will go to the party and the candidates who show a genuine concern for negro's problems election bears a significance to the negro i think this election not only bears a significance to the negro but every citizen of the united states why it is not only a national election for us but it is a local and a state election not only in this election will we be voting for the president of the united states we will be voting for the governor of north carolina and we have a special account because we are voting for an auditorium of cumberland county do you think that uh the negroes realize the importance of a vote i am sure that most of the negroes uh i should say about percent will come out to vote i don't think you can get any better than that i i i take for an example i've received two letters from several people that are away at the present time and they are primarily interested how can i get an absentee ballot will you please explain that to me so i will be able to vote in the coming election well now being that you're electing national offices and state offices do you think that this will confuse the people in any way i don't think so the reason i don't think so is because we have had uh voter registration workshops in cumberland county and it has been explained to them what they are doing and what is going on so consequently it shouldn't be uh too much of a difficulty well because in my particular mood we have more people than that either register never been ever before and if you are qualified uh registered for i think it'll help you in every area in our community we have a club that we are organizing and so we uh run our improvement project there every year where we encourage people to come out and listen to what we have to say and then we inform them of the necessity and importance and uh register and voting so that reason why we've been able to get quite a few on the registration but more than ever before there have been um certain organizations and fraternal organizations that have offered transportation to people that would like to go to the polls not only have they offered transportation but they have offered uh babysitters they have offered uh someone to come in if they have to have meals at a certain time to see that uh their meals are prepared do you think that the people were aware of the importance of their vote in the last two elections i would say that is speaking primarily of north carolina there has been more awareness um brought home and that this is the one vote that will count so consequently i believe everyone is going to try to get out and vote so much so until we have we have had in certain cases where you would had had certain jobs that allowed their employees to get off in ample time so they would be able to get back to their polling places in ample time to vote well dirk well sir uh do you believe that your vote is important as an individual i believe that my vote is important as an individual vote just might be the one vote that will get my candidate in do you think that the negro vote will play a greater part in putting one particular party in the negro as a whole will play an important part and i think in playing this particular part i don't think it's going to be more or less a race issue but it is going to be an issue that is this is the type of individual that we would like to have in the office irrespective as of to race color our creed well no you said that the uh they would realize that uh their vote was important uh yes but i i mean they are thinking of their vote as important primarily because they they are negro but i am thinking on my vote as being important because i am an individual and because i am a citizen and that it is my civic responsibility to vote now do you believe that the people who did not register realize that they should have i am i'm quite sure of that and i am more sure that uh maybe than some others because i am working with some of the school children the children in their civic classes have had brought home to them the importance of registering the children are urging the parents to get out and vote and although many of the parents were not on the books because the children urged them to get out and vote they have brought their parents out to vote even when they were not registered so consequently the parents have made a concerted effort now to get on the books those that were perhaps unfortunate and did not get on the books the last time i am sure will make a concerted effort to get on the books as soon as this general election is over we shall make our rights [Music] we shall [Music] and i'm unmuting us so you can actually hear what we're saying so natalie will be good uh how many you've seen this film a couple of times correct yep um so what are the this being probably the third or fourth time you've seen it like what are some things that have kind of risen some observations that you've made um well i mean i think the this most recent time that i watched um you know i was struck by the fact that very early on it's clear that the upcoming election in um you know 1964 is a pivotal one um you know it's seen as a fairly consequential one by the black citizens that are interviewed um not unlike this upcoming election in 2020 um and uh one of the first questions we hear from one of the students talking to i believe the housewives you know that's sitting on the grass uh who you know discloses that she is registered to vote but her husband isn't and it's not her business as to why he is not uh registered you know the the interviewer asks what is the election based on racial overtones again um striking resemblance to this upcoming election um i think the thing that really struck me though this time was um what seems to be be a deep belief on the part of black citizens in 1964 that not only is voting a privilege as an american citizen but that it's an essential part of first class citizenship so there's a way the black people are expecting that through their ability to vote they're going to be seen as you know equal as citizens just like anyone else um and it's just very interesting to me and and in some ways maddening because of you know the voter repression to say the least that black people experience you know throughout the 20th century um but the ways that that's still happening today and that black people are still targeted and still not considered first-class citizens in many ways so just these the the the socio-political implications of this 1964 moment are very interesting to me yeah um in showing this in fayetteville last year um it was fascinating to kind of hear there was a professor there and he was there as a student and so he was he knew many of the people that were in the film and he was talking about what was happening there as far as the student movement and as far as you know trying to get these the word out and trying to get folks to register and the that he felt like the film documented some of that pushback that uh you're mentioning that some of the um low low skilled workers the the blue-collar workers were hesitant to vote yeah yeah i mean i i think that's really it's it's interesting that as late as 1964 that their um you know i can i can i talk about behind the scenes while what we were talking about sure do it i mean i just think it's really it's it's um our history is fascinating i will say that and you know my impression or my understanding of voting history for black people has been that we weren't really able to vote until 1965 right with the voting rights act um but what we you know what this film signals is that black folks were able to vote i'm still trying to understand how black women were able to vote in 1964 um but you know i think the extent to which black people were kept from voting makes it seem as though as you said that they really weren't able to vote i mean in essentially they weren't able to vote practically they were not able to vote even though um from from um all appearances black men were able to but because of all the different obstacles and ninja moves that were being made to keep black people men in particular from being able to vote from 1900 to 1965 is is um you know it's evident in this 1964 film because these workers who don't want to answer the students questions don't want to answer them because they're concerned about what will happen to their livelihoods if they even indicate that they're thinking about voting right so that history um you know the the intimidation the terror visited on black folks to get them to not vote is interest is is like you know um it's it's it's recent um again it's contemporary because we're still dealing with some of that and potentially we'll deal with that to a large extent in november um but also you know i'm really fascinated by the fact that these black women in 1964 we're talking about yes i plan to vote and i'm trying to figure out how they're able to because they didn't women black women didn't get the vote in 1920. so when what what is that about and is it was it only as you suggested um you know when we're talking offline in certain states that they weren't able to vote and there were states that they were able to right and that's more doing some more history research i mean obviously we both were like we need to read more about this definitely what was in place and what wasn't in place um one of the things that i i could be misremembering but the the gentleman that they kept coming back to at the end who has this very distinctive uh articulated draw i feel like um that when i showed in fayetteville they were like yes he was a minister or he was uh he worked at a church um and that that the churches were one of the places that were empowering people to go register and to have a voice in in what was happening politically um and um i think we were trying to figure out where he was where he was living at the time because some people were like oh i think i know where that is what neighborhood that is and all that but it was really fascinating to show the film to people who knew what was happening at the time in fayetteville and what was happening you know both on a regional and a national level um and you know the first time i watched this film i was like wow things were really rough back then but that landscape of um disenfranchising voters has radically changed in the last five years in my mind um to the point where it's like wow i need to show this all the time bad ways yeah um and you know we i think natalie you were talking about some of the things that kept african americans from voting uh the jim crow laws uh and that they weren't equally applied across the country but some of them were the literacy test like you couldn't vote if you couldn't pass this absurd literacy test uh what were some of the other things the poll tax um wow so i i cannot i can't uh describe what all of these different um measures that were in place to keep black people from voting are about but i mean i think the most striking thing was violence you know people were um black folks were were beat up um you know even lynched uh to to keep them from voting or to send a message to other black people that don't you should not even try to do this um and especially in the south the deep south at that because um you know the the black vote quite possibly could have upset the status quo um if black people have really been able to exercise their power you know as voters right yeah and so the idea that there would be a police presence or guards at polling stations was off-putting because they felt that that could be they could be arrested or they could you know be beaten up um and that certainly comes up again when it was like oh well we need to have um people at the the polling stations police state police officers and or people from the national guard there um it's certainly kind of bringing up those same ideas um and the idea of threatening people like they're in north carolina i don't know if you grew up in north carolina but there were uh times where letters were sent to certain certain neighborhoods low-income african-american neighborhoods saying that if you vote wrong you'll go to jail and coming up with ways to scare people wrong yeah if you voted in a way where you didn't if there was a discrepancy in your address with your registration or they just took some little minor thing and they made it into this like you know you are potentially going to end up in jail if things are not laid out the way they're supposed to be uh with us and just to intimidate just to keep people from actually voting um lots of shenanigans like that over the years yeah well i mean it to me that was you know it reminds me of all of the bait that's sort of been you know thrown into the mix by someone who i shall not mention to make you know the potential results really whether they go one way or the other um questionable um you know because of potential fraud um because people you know make a mistake you know a legitimate one um but it's also really interesting to me you know i i didn't know that history uh north carolina history i'm not from here i'm from chicago but i'm thinking of you know several instances where it's not the same sorry thinking of something else but i you know just the idea of planting that seed of fear in a black person and saying that if you get one thing wrong you could go to jail yeah i mean that's effective i can see that being highly effective in getting someone to decide they're going to stay at home i don't know did it did it come across to you that there were more black men and who were not registered to vote didn't want to talk about voting um you know didn't want to answer questions about voting uh or um you know then than black women in in the piece that well yeah certainly it seemed like women were more felt more strongly about voting than the men but that's can be misleading because we don't know how many people are actually interviewed and we don't know how it was edited down but it was interesting to see that there were more voices of women uh who felt it was important to vote um yeah and and more men that were like well no not gonna really vote or you know i'd rather not talk about it yeah yeah seemed like the pastors and anyone else who was considered professional were the ones who felt very strongly i'm talking about of the black men who were pastors black men who were considered professional workers uh were the ones who you know were like uh i absolutely believe in my right to vote and i will be voting so as as a professor in in talking with students do you ever talk about films that talk about this time period in civil rights in the united states and making recommendations or like are there good things are there good recommendations of films to investigate or books to uh to seek out that kind of talk about this time period yeah specific to voting or just in terms of well just the civil rights time period and and you know since you're a film professor then i know that you're gonna hopefully have some good film recommendations oh yeah i mean i think so i think i do i i um so one of the things that i try to do in a couple of my courses is help um counter um use films that help to tell the true story of um black folks in particular who were demonized and marginalized during this time period mainly because of their politics um but who um so i have a class that i teach called black popular culture and i also teach an intro to african american studies course and in both courses i use two documentaries one called free angela and all political prisoners that was released in 2015 by shala lynch which tells the whole story of angela davis arriving at ucla um being summarily fired because she's a communist um and then you know being charged as an accessory to the murder of a federal judge and you know everything that transpires after that or as a result of that um because there is a way that angela davis certainly went when i was growing up she was like you know radical kami you know boogie woman you know um that you're not supposed to respect or admire um but you know angela davis to this day is a freedom fighter and i think she's an important it's important for students to hear from her about who she is as opposed to the media representations of who she is and the same with the black panthers there's a film that the filmmaker stanley nelson did i think it was released in 2017 called the black panthers vanguard of the revolution and he has both um women and men who are in the black panthers in the 60s and early 70s talking about you know what they went through what their experience was what the panthers were trying to do and making the connection between the social programs that the panthers were trying to institute and the threat that that presented besides the you know all we know is that the black panthers were like these bad badass black men in you know black leather with rays and rifles but they were trying to feed the community they were trying to um you know provide medical care they were trying to do all these things that were not being done for black communities um and that's really what shut them down i mean the guns were a good excuse but it was really what they were trying to do socially that was going to have an impact politically um so those are films that i think are very powerful really well done amazing stories um amazing storytelling um you know that that speak from the perspective of the folk who lived it about this time interesting yeah in my collection um i've been digitizing uh some films that were made about blank black panther projects uh there's a organization called california newsreel that did a whole series of uh of amazing films that i was able to digitize uh and put online um and so yeah it's a very interesting time period because you know coming out at you know in the 70s growing up you know black panthers oh they're they're bad they're like a radical organization like the clan or um right they're a hate group yeah they're a terrorist group yeah um and so it's interesting to kind of see that history and to see where where it all kind of comes from um yeah any other comments that you want to say we have a audience of a bunch of people that love the film and love our discussion is there anything you'd like to interject um well you know there were a couple of notes that i took um that and i guess the the there are two two things um one you know um again i was really kind of struck by i think there i mean black folks in aspiring to be seen as first-class citizens as equal to white people um have especially at this time were invested in a a type of respectability politics that has never worked for us um and that respectability politics you know i think is most evident in the gentleman that is interviewed you know pretty much for the whole end of the film the pastor that's sitting you know in his backyard with the beautiful fauna in the back and holding his dog you know he represents a certain type of middle class or even maybe upper middle class success that i think black folks really believed and hoped and to some extent you know sometimes due to this day although i think in this moment of racial reckoning that has been addressed in many ways but i think black folks thought you know i'm just like you can't you see that i'm i've got my nice house i've got you know i got my little sweater my um button-up shirt and i got my dog i've got my you know i have the whole all the trappings of success of the american dream um and and this should be enough for you to see that i am just like you i deserve the same rights and you know i've i've earned them um and it's just that that that whole investment has never paid off we've never reaped any sort of dividends from that approach um you know the other thing that i thought about was you know i think i mentioned this but just um there's a certain level of discussion from the people who are interviewed about voter suppression you know there is definitely a way that they are aware i mean you spoke to in terms of the police presence at the polls but um you know it's kind of unspoken again in the way that certain of the unskilled workers quote unquote won't talk about it you know that's voter suppression if you're afraid of what's going to happen to you economically or in terms of your livelihood that is absolutely voter suppression um and i guess the last thing is that you know one of the one of the women i think towards the end of the film says that we're gonna win oh no or maybe it's the narrator but someone says that black folks were you know hoping to win their basic rights by showing political strength um and i guess it's interesting to me um i don't i don't i don't know that there's ever been a moment in time except maybe during reconstruction when there have actually been uh you know political candidates or folk in office who were who did something were working towards lack progress um and so you know it's it's kind of heartbreaking honestly to be a black woman in 2020 and look back at this film and see that this was the hope in 1964 and 36 years later like okay kamala harris has been selected vp pick but do we really have the political strength have we realized that yet and um you know i guess the saga continues we'll see what happens in november 56 years later oh thank you because i was like wait a minute this came out two years ago before i was born yes thank you yes yeah you know it seems like yes we i would have hoped that we had gotten further um and it's frustrating but you know somebody says you know the cost of freedom is dealt is you know being diligent and being you know aware that there's constantly things that are threatening freedom and you have to constantly be working um to keep it free there's films that came out uh in world war i just after world war ii that talk about you know hey we just beat the nazis but you know what that same thing that gave the nazis power is strong in the united states and we have to constantly be aware of it and fight it um and it's fascinating to see that because you know we're kind of on that after world war two we were on that afterglow of like yay united states is awesome we're great and and people educational filmmakers point out no actually we have some problems and we have to address those problems otherwise they will they will erode our freedoms um i think the uh you hate to use the phrase but i think chickens are coming home to roost in this moment chickens chickens and uh so you mentioned ninja moves when you talk about the i think that's really interesting uh term a ninja move to keep people from voting um any other comments i wanted to ask you you know do you given um like what you were saying about the films that you've seen um that you have in your possession right after world war ii and what educational filmmakers were saying then about what needed to happen um then to not have i think what's happening now like how do you see that how do you see the trajectory of um of of i guess the electorate being involved actively involved in ensuring that our freedoms don't erode do you think we have been involved or have we like kind of slept on the job well i mean that's the thing is um so there's this amazing film called despotism that came out in the late 40s and it's made by an educational film company coronet films and it it shows a kind of a graph or it's like a line it's like here's democracy i i'm not even sure that you can see my hands and here's here's despotism and it kind of shows like what happens to create a despotic uh government and it talks about distribution of wealth it talks about a free press it talks about um the disenfranchisement of the voters in fact i feel compelled to show it like after we kind of wrap it up here i might just stream it because i have it handy um and it's an awesome film um because it is something that you know historically you would think oh well you know we we're the usa we were great and it's like no we're not great we still have problems uh and if we don't keep an eye on them they will really be a problem for us and in part of it is voting is important but there's other aspects of this and one is a free press and to see the controls of the you know many newspapers being owned by one family that your diversity and your freedom of press has has gotten very narrow uh to see that people are now getting their news from you know mostly from facebook is also a problem because you don't have a sense of who is responsible for that reporting and and so it's it's really kind of interesting um to see and and i when i first saw despotism i was like oh boy we're not doing so great on this um on this graph and we have slid even worse uh to this point so um yeah i might just show that after we kind of wrap up here um but it's it's after four uh jason do you want to pop back on here he is yeah well just to to say to our uh audience who was expecting an hour thank you for being with us what a fascinating film and such a great conversation thank you so much natalie for joining us for this yes thank you i enjoyed it well we'll keep you we'd love to keep you on the list for returns so you could be our third like our first three-time engagement that's right you were on here twice that's awesome i would love that um so just as a reminder to our audience remember to visit avgeeks.com for more info about the kinds of movies that we just watched check out some compilations from the libraries just um even hearing talk about other educational films that shed some light on the historical struggles that we've faced with getting everyone the freedom to do something as important as voting uh you'll find more at places like avgeeks.com archive.org etc use your library and librarians to help you find those too our next show is on friday september 18th at 6 pm and it is called imagination of a black child featuring professor daryl stover and it will be about educational films made by made by black filmmakers or for black audiences or both so tune in and until then you can watch previous av geeks at the library shows or revisit this one through the library's website and thank you skip for hosting as always yeah and i hope you don't mind but i'm going to go ahead and show um despotism yeah so we will this is a bonus for those of you who wish to stick around please do and natalie thanks again thank you thank you you can roughly learn along a scale running all the way from democracy to despotism one community may be near the democracy end another somewhere in the middle and a third may be near the despotism end let's find out about despotism this man makes it his job to study these things well for one thing avoid the comfortable idea that the mere form of government can of itself safeguard a nation against despotism germany under president hindenburg public and yet his republic an aggressive despotism took root and flourished under adolf hitler when a competent observer looks for signs of despotism in the community he looks beyond fine words and noble phrases one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all many observers have found that two workable yardsticks help in discovering how near a community is to despotism the respect scale and the power scale a careful observer can use a respect scale to find how many citizens get an even break as a community moves towards despotism respect is restricted to fewer people a community is low on a respect scale if common courtesy is withheld from large groups of people on account of their political attitudes if people are rude to others because they think their wealth and position gives them that right or because they don't like a man's race or his religion equal opportunity for all citizens to develop useful skills is one basis for rating a community on a respect scale the opportunity to develop useful skills is important but not enough the equally important opportunity to put skills to use is a further test on a respect scale a power scale is another important yardstick of despotism it gauges the citizens share in making the community's decisions communities which concentrate decision-making in a few hands rate low on a power scale and are moving towards despotism like france under the bourbon kings one of whom said the state i am the state today democracy can ebb away in communities whose citizens allow power to become concentrated in the hands of bosses what i say go see i'm the law around here the test of despotic power is that it can disregard the will of the people it rules without the consent of the governed beyond the legal formalities of an election in measuring a community on the power scale to see if the ballot is really free if the citizens can vote only the way they're told a community approaches despotism when legislatures become ceremonial assemblies only and have no real control over law making their community rates low on a power scale in a downright despotism opposition is dangerous whether the despotism is official or whether it is unofficial the spread of respect and power in a community is influenced by certain conditions which many observers measure by means of the economic distribution and information scales if a community's economic distribution becomes slanted its middle-income groups grow smaller and despotism stands a better chance to gain a foothold where land is privately owned one sign of a poorly balanced economy is the concentration of land ownership in the hands of a very small number of people when farmers lose their farms they lose their independence this one can stay on but not as his own boss anymore to the extent that this condition exists throughout a nation the likelihood of despotism has increased in communities which depend almost entirely on a single industry such as a factory or mine maintaining economic balance is a challenging problem if this condition exists over the nation as a whole so that the control of jobs and business opportunities is in a few hands despotism stands a good chance another sign of a poorly balanced economy is a taxation system that presses heaviest on those least able to pay a larger part of a small income is spent on necessities such as food sales taxes on such necessities hit the small income harder in the days of the salt tax feudal despotisms were partly sustained by this and other forms of sales tax a community rates low on an information scale when the press radio and other channels of communication are controlled by only a few people and when citizens have to accept what they're told in communities of this kind despotism stands a good chance see how such a community trains its teachers bear this in mind young people cannot be trusted to form their own opinions this business about open-mindedness is nonsense it's a waste of time trying to teach students who think for themselves it's our job to tell them and when teachers put such training into practice despotism stands a good chance these children are being taught to accept uncritically whatever they're told questions are not encouraged how can you ask such a question have you got a textbook yes ma'am does it say here that our courts are always just yes ma'am then how dare you question the fact sit down and so we aren't surprised when but it must be true i saw it in this book right here and if books and newspapers and the radio are efficiently controlled the people will read and accept exactly what the few in control want them to government censorship is one form of control a newspaper which breaks a government censorship rule can be suspended it is also possible for newspapers and other forms of communication to be controlled by private interests i thought i told you to kill that story it'll cost us a lot of advertising that story goes out i quit all right what sort of community do you live in where would you place it on a democracy despotism scale to find out you can rate it on a respect scale and a power scale and to find out what way it is likely to go in the future you can rate it on economic distribution and information scales the lower your community rates on economic distribution and information scales the lower it is likely to rate on respect and power scales and thus to approach despotism what happens in a single community is the problem of its own citizens but it is also the problem of us all because as communities go so goes the nation you